Tawstock - Tawstock Court

Tawstock Court

The Elizabethan mansion re-built by William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath (d.1623), whose magnificent monument with effigies exists in St Peter's Church, no longer exists apart from the gatehouse, with date-stone 1574. The Wrey family of Trebeigh Manor, St Ive near Liskeard, Cornwall, were heirs of the Bourchiers on the death of Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath in 1654 without progeny. Anne Bourchier, one of the three daughters of his first cousin once removed Edward Bourchier, 4th Earl of Bath (d.1636), had married Sir Chichester Wrey, 3rd Baronet (1628-1668), and thus as one of the three Bourchier co-heiresses she brought the Tawstock estate to the Wrey family. Four years after Sir Bourchier Wrey, 7th Baronet (1757-1826) had inherited the estate from his father the house burned down in 1787 and was rebuilt by him in the Neo-Gothic style by about 1800, when Rev. John Swete described visiting it in his travel journal: "Entering through a gateway of antient date by the stables I arrived in front of Tawstock House the seat of Sir Bourchier Wrey which when completed (for it is now but a shell) will be one of the finest houses in the county" He considered however that the church intercepted the view but excused its presence on account of its architectural merits and "highly-wrought" monumental contents. Part of the Elizabethan house survives today on the south front. The north front was re-modelled in 1885. The principal east front, with crenallated parapet and two end turrets, faces towards St Peter's Parish Church and has a magnificent view across the River Taw to Bishops Tawton village and Codden Hill. It forms a highly picturesque sight when viewed from Bishops Tawton, through which passes a main road to Barnstaple. Sir Robert Bourchier Sherard Wrey, 11th Baronet (1855-1917) was the last to live at Tawstock Court and "to keep house in the old manner" and moved to Corffe, a house on the estate about 1/2 mile SW of Tawstock Court, having let the Court. On his own death in 1917 the title passed to his younger brother, Sir Philip Bourchier Sherard Wrey, 12th Baronet (1858-1936), who in 1919 sold 2,500 acres of the estate for £67,000, leaving some 7,000 acres remaining. In about 1940 Sir Philip's younger brother and heir, Rev. Sir Albany Bourchier Sherard Wrey, 13th Baronet (1861-1948), let Tawstock Court to St Michael's Preparatory School. His nephew and heir Sir (Castel Richard) Bourchier Wrey, 14th Baronet (1903-1991) lived at Webbery, near Bideford, about 4 1/4 miles SW of Tawstock Court, and in the 1970's sold Tawstock Court to its tenant St Michael's School and sold most of the remaining land. Sir George Richard Bourchier Wrey, 15th Baronet (born 1948) inherited only a farmhouse with a few hundred acres, and in 2002 was running a family property business, entirely unconnected with the former Wray estates. St Michael's School continued to occupy Tawstock Court until 2012 when it became insolvent and went into administration, upon which the preparatory school closed. On 17 July 2012 the property with 32 acres was purchased for an undisclosed sum from the administrator Grant Thornton UK LLP, joint administrators of St Michael's School Tawstock Ltd., by Mr Rik Peryer, a property investor and developer, as a private residence. As part of the sale the nursery school division of St Michael's School continues to operate (in 2013) in the stable blocks to the immediate west of the house.